In recent years, information processing apparatuses equipped with an input device such as a touch panel are in widespread use. A touch panel is an input device in which, for example, a device that detects coordinates of a position that is contacted by a user operation is superimposed on and combined with a display device such as an LCD (Liquid Crystal Display). A PC (Personal Computer), a portable telephone, a smartphone, a laptop PC, a tablet PC, a PDA (Personal Data Assistant), a game machine and a navigation device can be mentioned as examples of information processing apparatuses that are equipped with a touch panel.
In the above described information processing apparatus, for example, objects relating to character input and the like are displayed on the display device. The operator (hereafter, also referred to as “user”) of the information processing apparatus, for example, may input a predetermined character by performing a touch operation by bringing an operation finger or the like into contact with a display region of objects relating to character input or the like. The following input forms are known as interfaces for performing character input by a touch operation.
For example, with regard to an operation to input kana (Japanese syllabary) characters on a display device, let us assume that objects are displayed in which a column “a” of the respective rows “a, ka, sa, ta, na, ha, ma, ya, ra, wa” in the Japanese 50-sound chart are arrayed like a numeric keypad. Japanese kana characters “a”, “ka”, “sa”, “ta”, “na”, “ha”, “ma”, “ya”, “ra” and “wa” are written as below.
“”, “”, “”, “”, “”, “”, “”, “”, “”, “”
The information processing apparatus, for example, detects the repetition of a touch operation in a display region of the respective objects (toggle input), and switches a displayed object. For example, in accordance with the repetition of a touch operation, the information processing apparatus switches the displayed kana characters of each row in the manner of column “a”→column “i”→column “u”→“e”→column “o”. Japanese characters “a”, “i”, “u”, “e” and “o” are written as below.
“”, “”, “”, “”, “”
A user may input a desired character by switching the display characters that are displayed by a toggle input.
Further, for example, around the area in which the characters “a, ka, sa, ta, na, ha, ma, ya, ra, wa” included in the column “a” are arranged like a numeric keypad, the other four columns (column “i”, column “u”, column “e”, and column “o”) may be arranged in a cross shape or a fan shape. The information processing apparatus detects a flick operation that moves the contact position of a finger so as to flick the finger, for example, in the direction of a region in which a target character is disposed from a region in which keys of the column “a” of each row are displayed. According to the information processing apparatus, a character disposed in a region corresponding to the movement direction of the flick operation is selected as an input character. A user may input a desired character by performing a flick operation in the direction of the region in which the target character is disposed from the display region of the respective rows.
For further information, see Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2013-171295, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2012-146160, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2013-200876, and Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2012-168939
In input forms that use a toggle method or a flick method that are described above, a display region of a character row becoming an initial operation object is displayed on a touch panel screen. For example, the row “a, ka, sa, ta, na, ha, ma, ya, ra, wa” which is used as the initial operation object is displayed on a touch panel screen for user's touch. Therefore, for example, in a case where the display device has a small size and a display region of a touch panel is narrow, there is a possibility that pressing errors occur by erroneous contact of an adjacent operation object.